Disturbed by movement rather than noise, Rosamund opened her eyes. She had fallen asleep in Bianca’s room, and it took her a moment to orient herself. When she did, she was shocked at what she saw.
Lowering himself onto Bianca’s bed was Jacopo.
“Jacopo!” exclaimed Rosamund, suddenly wide-awake. She sat up and watched as he leaned over and stroked his sister’s gray face. “How did you get in here?”
Bianca groaned.
“Jacopo—” began Rosamund. “You shouldn’t be here. The risk is too great—”
“Allora, please, Rosamund. Do not waste your breath. I will not heed your warnings—not when it comes to Bianca. She’s my sister.”
Rosamund stood and stretched, brushing her skirts. Tears trailed down Jacopo’s cheeks as he gazed upon Bianca. The love and utter devastation in his face took Rosamund’s breath away. She wrapped an arm about his shoulders and pulled him to her. Still holding Bianca’s hand, he resisted at first, then pressed his face into Rosamund’s bosom and wept. Kissing the top of his head, she prayed he wouldn’t feel her scalding tears.
She whispered comfort and held him as he held Bianca, who opened her eyes. “I . . . I thought I was dreaming,” she said faintly.
Jacopo composed himself and smiled at her. “No, bella. I am here. I’m not leaving you again. When we came to this city, we promised never to be apart. It was the one thing the master allowed us—to be together.”
Bianca smiled. Her lips were dry, and the action caused her to wince. “Sì, that’s true. But even so, you will leave if I say so, mio fratello.”
Jacopo pressed his forehead against hers. “I won’t.”
“You’re a fool.” Bianca gave a laugh that became a cough.
Jacopo quickly tried to help her into a sitting position as Rosamund plumped the pillows behind her.
“Stay, Jacopo,” said Rosamund. “I will fetch water to bathe her face and something to drink. I’ll let the others know you’re here.” Opening the door, she paused. “How did you get in? There were watchmen on the gates, were there not?”
“Sì, but I didn’t live here for years without learning how to enter and leave without the master knowing.” He gave her a cheeky wink. “How do you think we went to the Friends meetings? How do you think I saw Filip?” He tilted his head. “You will tell him I am here?” he asked softly.
“I will, and you must tell me how you did so.” She paused. “And what of Matthew? Is he with you?”
Jacopo frowned. “He has gone to seek medick. He may be a while.”
Shutting her eyes briefly, she thought of him roaming the infected streets, risking himself for their sakes. She almost laughed. Here she was concerned lest he expose himself to the contagion when they were all in danger no matter where they were.
Touching Jacopo lightly on the shoulder, she whispered, “We will use what we have till Matthew arrives.” She went to fetch all she thought Jacopo would need for Bianca.
Filip found her as she was carrying a bucket of scalding water upstairs. “How goes the patient?” he asked. His eyes were pouched with tiredness and an oily sheen on his cheeks reflected the dawn light.
Rosamund passed the bucket to Filip gratefully. “There’s something I must tell you.” She quickly relayed what had happened.
Filip almost dropped the bucket. Tears sprang into his eyes. “He’s here?”
“Aye, but he’s with Bianca. He is . . . You must understand, he’s not keeping a distance.”
“Of course he’s not.” There was pride in his voice. “And neither are you. You never have, Rosamund. We’ve been through too much together to consider keeping distant. What are families for if not to provide comfort and hope when others cannot? Are we not family?”
He smiled and ran a finger down her cheek, catching a tear she didn’t know had escaped. He held it up to the light, where it sparkled like a jewel. Filip was right. It was easy to be a friend when times were good. It was in hard times that true friends revealed themselves. Their friendship had been forged in the hottest of fires and fused them into family.
“Come,” she said, wrapping a hand around one handle of the bucket as Filip took the other. “Let’s offer more comfort and hope.”
* * *
In his wisdom, God saw fit to dole out comfort and hope in small but even measures. Where he gave to one, he took from another and so kept the scales in some kind of divine balance. As Bianca miraculously recovered, Jacopo fell ill.
The moment he did, they moved another bed into Bianca’s chamber, placing brother and sister side by side. While Bianca looked pale and weakened by her ordeal, her body ravaged and the tokens still stark even upon her dark flesh, it was evident from her brighter eyes and husky voice that she was recovering.
As she grew stronger with each breath, Jacopo weakened. It was almost as if he were surrendering his life force to his sister. Bianca railed against what was happening, crying out to God in all the many tongues she knew, turning to Jacopo to whisper his favorite tales of heroes so he might carry the spirit of these mighty beings into his soul or, as he grew sicker, into the ears of God in heaven above.
Unable to leave his side, Filip had done what he could, forbidding Solomon and Thomas from entering the room, but asking them to fetch and carry clothes, water, medick. Between them, he and Rosamund cared for Jacopo and Bianca, hauling them out of bed when they needed to relieve themselves, changing and washing the bedding when they were not quick enough, spooning broth or chocolate into their mouths. Trying to adhere to the tenets of cleanliness, it was difficult.
The room stank, and Rosamund’s clothes were stained with bodily fluids and foodstuffs, but she didn’t care; she didn’t want to waste a minute worrying about anything beyond Jacopo and Bianca and their recovery. But she was bone-weary and aching. Her head hurt.
When Matthew entered the room on the second day after Jacopo fell ill, supplies in hand, she thought he was simply a wraith from her dreams. She’d nodded off thinking about him, wondering how he was faring, and here he was. She smiled at him, but it wasn’t until he kneeled by her side and took her hand in his and she smelled the blowsy odor of him that she knew he was real.
“Dear God,” she choked. “You’re really here.”
“I am,” he said and pressed her fingers to his lips.
She began to cry. He put her palm upon his cheek.
A sound from Jacopo’s bed interrupted them. “Matteo,” he whispered.
“I’m here, my friend,” said Matthew and, lowering himself carefully, took Jacopo’s hand in his own. “I thought I was bringing physick for Bianca alone, but you’re ever determined to share your sister’s lot, aren’t you?” He tried to smile, but his lips wouldn’t cooperate.
Where he failed, Jacopo succeeded. “The eternal demand of the younger sibling.” Jacopo shut his eyes. The tokens on his neck were huge and weeping. His tongue was swollen, his breath rancid, yet the proud, beautiful man who’d endured beatings from Sir Everard without a whimper was still evident. The young man who’d been so torn by his master’s order not to teach Rosamund to read he’d told his sister, who gave Rosamund what she craved so deeply. Jacopo, who’d protected her when she didn’t know it, who’d hovered like a guardian angel, keeping secrets no one should be asked to keep, ensuring that after Sir Everard died, the businesses kept running. It was Jacopo and his sister who had told her to trust Matthew. To deal with the man she’d been led to believe was the devil.
The devil sat on the bed holding Jacopo’s hand, gazing with sympathy at Bianca and Filip. Filip was just a shell, a scarecrow without his stuffing. How could she not have seen how Jacopo felt about him, how they felt about each other? Such love, such affection could not be unnatural, could it? Couldn’t be a sin in God’s eyes.
The acrid smell of death filled her nostrils. Love and death were both here, only death was winning this night.
In a daring gesture, she placed her hands on Matthew’s shoulders, and shut her eyes in relief and pleasure when one of his gloved hands closed over hers.
“Your family is here, Jacopo,” she said.
Jacopo’s eyelids flickered. “More than you know,” he said.
Bianca gave a dry laugh.
“What does he mean?” Rosamund turned to Bianca.
Jacopo signaled for a kerchief, which Filip passed. He spat into it and lay back again. “Bianca, please; it’s time we tell her.”
Bianca frowned. “Time for me to do as you tell me, mio fratello?”
Jacopo nodded and tried to summon a grin, but his swollen mouth wouldn’t allow it; his expression was more a grimace. “Sì,” he murmured.
“What he means, Rosamund,” said Bianca, rolling on her side, “is this: just as you’re a Blithman, just as Matthew married one and is thus connected, so are we—me and Jacopo.”
Matthew’s hand tightened over Rosamund’s. Did he know what she was about to hear?
“I . . . I’m not sure I understand.”
Jacopo’s lustrous blue-green eyes were latched onto her.
“Me and Jacopo, we’re Sir Everard’s piccoli bastardi neri—his little black bastards,” said Bianca. “At least, that’s what he used to call us—his dirty by-blows—and that’s what Gregory, Helene and Aubrey called us too. We are Blithman spawn just as surely as his other children.”
Her words took a moment to register, then Rosamund gasped. She looked anew at their coloring, their magnificent bright eyes. Of course.
“Sir Everard was the lover who paid your mother to remain his?”
“Sì. He would always promise that if anything happened to her, he would take care of us.” She made a disparaging noise. “In that regard, he didn’t lie. He took us away to England and, in his own way, cared.”
Rosamund recalled the number of times she saw Jacopo limping, bruised; the beating he had received at the chocolate house that day. She thought about the way in which they would both accept and even protect Sir Everard and his secrets—from the other servants, from gossip, from her . . . even when he was at his worst. They were his children. His flesh and blood. Blithmans.
Her hands dropped from Matthew’s shoulders and went to her cheeks. “Why did you keep this from me? I mean, I understand while Sir Everard was alive you probably had to . . .” Bianca nodded. “But after he died . . . why? Why not tell me?”
“We did discuss it, Jacopo and I.” Bianca flashed him a look of love. “But we decided against it. You’d already endured so much. And would it have made a difference? You already gave us what no one, apart from our mother, had—love, the freedom to be. We could not ask for more; we could not burden you with the truth. Not then. Now? What difference does it make?”
What difference did it make? Rosamund knew that she could not love them more if they were—oh dear God, if they were Sir Everard’s children, that meant she was their stepmother. The wickedness of Sir Everard’s denial of his paternity, that he could treat them as he did, astounded her. They might have been slaves, but they were his in more ways than one.
And now they were hers.
“When you gave up your jointure so you might own us,” said Bianca, “we knew then it didn’t matter anymore. You gave us what he took from us—what he took from us all.”
As Bianca spoke, Filip captured Jacopo’s hand and held it to his heart. Jacopo’s eyes found Rosamund. “You didn’t need to buy us, Rosamund,” he croaked.
“No,” said Bianca. “We were already yours; you were already ours. A piece of paper makes no difference.”
Jacopo gave a dry cough; his eyes were fevered, bright. “You are our family too.” He searched for Rosamund’s fingers. “And I do love you with all my heart.”
Rosamund couldn’t speak. She nodded and, taking Jacopo’s other hand, pressed it to her bosom. Bianca reached and found her.
“We’ve all been touched by the Blithmans, for better or worse,” said Matthew calmly. “For all they destroyed so much, they cannot destroy this.”
Rosamund knew from the tone of his voice that he’d known who Bianca and Jacopo were all along. Just as they’d protected Sir Everard, they’d also protected Matthew from his wrath, revealing enough of Sir Everard’s intentions to him to keep him safe. One had been served through obligation and filial duty, the other through love and respect.
Just as they protected her.
She didn’t realize she’d said this aloud, releasing Jacopo’s hand in her passion, until Matthew stood and pulled her into an embrace. Filip joined them and held them both to his chest. Bianca leaned across her bed and demanded to be included as well. Ever so gently, they all hugged Jacopo, uncaring of his tokens and the infection that with every passing minute was claiming his life force. They’d been careful for so long, and that hadn’t helped. Why deny one another—why deny Jacopo—the comfort of human touch and the love that flowed from each of them when it was most needed?
And so as Jacopo passed into the Lord’s ever-open arms, he was surrounded by his extraordinary family and enveloped in the deepest mutual affection.